There is much to be positive about in relation to the recent history of the national health service. NHS England research indicates that the outcomes for most major conditions are significantly better than they were 10 years ago, and the NHS is seeing more patients and delivering more tests, treatments and operations than at any time in its 73-year history—millions more than 10 years ago when the Conservatives returned to power.
To reassure those concerned by some of the campaigns around the Bill, I emphasise that this Conservative Government are committed to NHS values. We are delivering the biggest ever cash increase in NHS funding. It is just plain wrong to accuse the Government of trying to privatise the NHS. In fact, it was the last Labour Government who pushed competition and private sector involvement, including many private finance initiative contracts that proved to be unwise and massively expensive. If anything, the Bill takes the NHS in the other direction by reducing the role for competition and increasing the scope for co-operation.
At the Bill’s core are the integrated care systems considered by this group of amendments. Its provisions on ICSs enjoy considerable support from within the NHS and build on the NHS’s own proposals for reform to make it less bureaucratic and more accountable and to enable it to be more integrated with other local service providers, such as councils.
I will not be backing the amendments in this group except those tabled by the Government. I welcome Government amendment 25 for the clarity that it provides to ensure that appointments to ICBs will not in any way jeopardise their independence. By dismantling elements of the complex system for compulsory tendering of
services, we will free up time and resources in the NHS and remove barriers to local co-operation so that we can improve patient care.
We all recognise that ever-increasing healthcare needs place great pressure on the NHS, which will rise in years to come as more of us become frail and need extra care. I ask the Minister, in his response, to emphasise how we will train, recruit and retain the professionals we need to deliver NHS services. Record numbers of doctors and nurses are working in our NHS, and I pay tribute to each and every one, but it is crucial to step up the numbers, especially of GPs. GPs in my constituency are overstretched and we need more of them. That needs to be a priority for the Government.